AN/: I mean...is it even Sonic's birthday if you don't post the chapter of fanfiction you have ready to commemorate the occasion?

Chapter Four: Beyond Repair

I must be buried in snow for how cold I feel. I try to twitch my tails up to wrap me in warmth, like they're a blanket, but I don't think they move. They're too heavy or too numb. I don't know. They're hard to feel.

Something in my chest burns. But like frost burn, not like heat. Like I've been burned out by something that doesn't burn at all.

"Tails!" Sonic shouted as he grabbed his little brother's arm and shook it.

Tails's eyes flashed open with a gasp that made his lungs ache. Sonic's wide-eyed gaze staring down at him quickly morphed into relief, complete with the smallest smile. That expression was enough to make Tails believe that a fraction of Sonic's true self remained within him.

Amy choked beside them, upright but pressing one hand to her chest.

"The Metarex," Tails said suddenly with a quiet, almost reverent panic. He shot upright. Sonic leaned back just in time to avoid a collision. Tails shoved himself to his feet despite his quaking knees and stumbled over to the captain's console. He looked out to the view just beyond them.

To a depth of black speckled with nothing more than stars.

Tails slumped forward, grabbing hold of his controls to prevent himself from collapsing to the ground once more. "I can't believe that worked," he admitted.

"Oh, c'mon, you didn't believe me?" Sonic exclaimed. Tails's eyes twitched to him and while a smile lit up Sonic's face, Tails didn't think it quite reached his eyes.

"You're kidding, right?" Amy choked. She cleared her throat and as she shoved herself to her feet, she continued, "You're the one who said that was Plan Z!"

Sonic just shrugged. But again, it looked like a gesture offered by Sonic's armor rather than Sonic himself. Tails squeezed his eyes shut. They didn't have time for this uncertainty. No matter their psychological damage, they would have to wait to figure that out after they survived the ordeal at hand.

Tails's eyes flashed open again. "Okay. Sonic and Amy, I need you to get everyone here to the bridge. I don't want to waste the little power we have on the intercoms. While you do that, I'll stay here and try to figure out where in the universe we are."

"Roger," Sonic said, offering a mock salute before racing off. Acting altogether too much like himself, considering what they just did. Considering how little he had looked like himself before.

Tails's eyes met Amy's and he saw his own feelings reflected there. But before either of them could say a thing about it, Tails just shook his head. "Later," he told her.

Amy pressed her lips together but nodded all the same before she dashed off after Sonic.

The moment she disappeared from view, Tails collapsed back into the captain's chair. His heart slammed against his chest—a million times in the span of a minute—and he expected his sternum to crack under the pressure any moment now. He stared down at his shaky hands as he balled them into fists. His blood managed to run both too hot and too cold through his veins. It seemed like the surface of his skin twitched, like there were a dozen itches that needed dealt with, like every strand of his fur stood on end. His stomach twisted with the beginnings of nausea.

It reminded Tails of the feeling when the fake Chaos Energy had radiated toward them in waves in Rusted Maple's final moments. The sensation of something so close to right, but just one single switch had been missed.

Tails hated it.

Hated the way the fake Chaos Energy burrowed through his skin to penetrate something far more essential beneath. Hated the way it felt like such an insult to real Chaos Energy. But most of all…

Tails hated how much it distracted him from far more urgent issues.

So he shoved down the discomfort, the anxiety, the disgust, and focused his attention on getting power back to the ship enough that he could figure out where in the universe they were. All the while praying they were as far from the Metarex as possible.

And as he stared at his screen with burning tired eyes, a gentle hand closed around his before he even realized Cosmo was there. "Your hands are shaking," she told him.

Tails released a heavy breath that shook about as much as his hands. He pulled his gaze away from his screen and to Cosmo's blue eyes. "I'm okay," he told her.

"You're not," she said firmly. She lifted his hand and pressed it between both of hers.

"But we got away from the Metarex," he insisted. "That's pretty much the most okay I can be."

Cosmo furrowed her brow. "I don't understand any of what's happening. The Metarex manipulating time? The Metarex having such extensive numbers? These cannot be the same creatures that attacked my colony. There must be something more to this that we don't yet know."

Tails's lips twisted into a frown. "I agree with you. But right now, we're at more than a disadvantage, and all we can do is survive."

She nodded but she didn't release his hand.

"Cosmo?" he whispered.

Her grip on his hand tightened. Her eyes broke his gaze and shifted down to where she clasped his hand. After a moment, she dared to whisper, "How can they be so powerful that they can manipulate time itself? How can we think we stand a chance against them?"

"Because we have to," Tails breathed. "If we don't at least have hope, then we don't have anything."

What he didn't admit was how his chest tightened at her words. How the same thought had crossed his own mind.

-(-)-

While Tails had known what he was asking for when he sent Sonic and Amy to gather the crew, it was something else entirely to see them all gathered together on the backup bridge of the Blue Typhoon.

At least the oddness of aging he had expected, even if it still wasn't something he could easily brush past. But it was the crew itself that threw him. His friends were there, of course: Knuckles Chris, Cream, and Cheese joining Cosmo, Sonic, and Amy.

But then there was Rouge. The Chaotix. Not to mention Eggman and his three most loyal robots.

Eggman was the first to speak up, a shadow of a sneer on his face. "So I hear you're the one with all the grand plans."

Tails's expression hardened. But it was Amy who snapped, "I really don't think this is the time for banter, especially since we just saved your life."

Eggman's lips twisted into a contemplative almost-smirk but he said nothing more. When Tails's eyes caught Sonic's, Sonic offered him an encouraging nod. Tails said, "No, we don't have a plan. We barely have power. I brought our emergency reserves online that will self-generate even without the Master Emerald but that will only allow us to limp along. Until the Master Emerald repairs itself, we won't have weapons or shields. But we'll be able to keep moving."

Tails tapped a couple keys on his controls and a map popped up on his monitor. "Unfortunately, it looks like the fake Chaos Emeralds brought us to a pretty desolate part of space. But that also hopefully means it'll be a little while before we run into the Metarex again.

"So our first order of business is getting to a repair station." He pointed to a gray speck amidst the vastness of black space. "Some of the repairs I can manage on my own with the supplies we already have but some of the worst damage I need supplies for, not to mention a proper docking bay for the Blue Typhoon."

Chris stepped up to take a closer look at the screen. "At our current pace, that's got to be at least four days away, maybe five."

Knuckles exclaimed, "And even if we get there, it's not like we can repair the Master Emerald! We'll still be weaponless and unable to move faster than a crawl. We don't stand a chance no matter what we do!"

"Don't say that!" Cream shouted.

Her young voice echoed eerily around the large room. The sound sent the room into silence. Because despite Cream's young voice, it didn't sound like an exclamation born out of naivety.

But rather, fury.

"We've been through too much to give up now!" she exclaimed. She stepped forward to stand in the middle of the group. She clutched her hands into fists at her sides. "If we give up now, then the whole universe will die. And if our fate's going to be the same either way, why shouldn't we at least try?"

For a long moment, no one said a word. Tails's breath caught in his chest. Cosmo stepped up to his side again and took his hand. He squeezed hers in return. And then he saw the corner of Rouge's lips twitch up. She nodded appraisingly. "Girl's got a point," she said.

But Vector scowled. "Is no one askin' how this is possible?"

Espio looked up at his teammate. "Is that matter of importance at this point?"

"Of course!" Vector exclaimed. "I'm not even talking all the time travel junk. But how could those Metarex suddenly have such a big army that we've never seen before? Why wouldn't they have used them the first time?"

Amy muttered, "He's got a point."

Eggman cut in, "Even so, it does not help to ask questions if we don't first survive long enough to find answers to them."

"Great time for those Time Whisperers to disappear," Knuckles growled.

"Which is how we know how bad things really are," Sonic said solemnly. With his arms crossed against his chest as they were, he looked more like Shadow than himself. "If there was a way for Angel to be here, she would be. Whatever the Metarex are doing to time, it's affecting the Time Whisperers too."

"In that case, it will be in our best interest to part ways," Eggman said.

Sonic raised his eyebrows at Eggman who stood opposite him on the other side of the room. Knuckles shot him a glare. But it was Amy who snapped, "Is that just your excuse to be a coward?"

Eggman smirked but the expression evaporated after a split second. "In part," he admitted slowly, his voice sounding as slimy as the words themselves. "In part because the power in my craft is not hindered by the lack of a Master Emerald."

Tails felt his forehead furrowing, expression darkening with Eggman's every word.

"Additionally," he added, "it may serve us all well if we attempt to extract the answers we seek from multiple angles."

It was Sonic's turn to smirk. "You're saying we should split up to work together." And then he just shrugged. "Hey, it's your call. No one's gonna hold you here if you don't want to be here."

"Speak for yourself," Knuckles muttered.

Tails returned his eyes to the map he had brought up on his screen. Really took in the distance between them and the waystation. Really considered the damage to the Blue Typhoon, not to mention their other crafts. All those repairs were going to fall on him and Chris, but he doubted that time was something they had in unlimited supply.

"We don't have time for this," Tails said suddenly, returning his gaze to those surrounding him, getting the sense he had interrupted further discussion he hadn't been listening to. But the room nonetheless fell silent when he spoke up. Tails sighed, shaking his head. "We don't have time to argue. The Metarex are clearly more prepared than we are already, and we can't afford to waste any more time. Eggman, if you think it's best to split up, fine, let's do it. But arguing about whether or not it's smart is just more wasted time."

Each pair of eyes in the room turned to Tails. Heat blossomed at the center of his chest in response to the collective attention. But rather than folding in on himself—as an older version of him might have done—he just squeezed Cosmo's hand a little tighter and remained standing tall.

He was captain of this ship. It was about time that title mean something.